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d amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours, too, Dan." Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing-- brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the huge trees. Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green. One was literally covered from the water's edge to its summit with a gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects the travellers had ever seen. "It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace," said Sir Humphrey. "So I was thinking," said the former. "Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the butterflies." "I was looking," said Sir Humphrey, "and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails." "No, no," whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pass away; "I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!" The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense. But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom. "Is it a great serpent?" said Brace huskily. "No," said Briscoe quickly. "A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. L
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